Local teacher turns 100

Monday

Lillian Ridenour was too young to remember the day her grandfather, Daniel Hess, carried her in his arms and into her new home on Welty Road in Washington Township.

Ridenour was only a few weeks old on that day in 1918 when she and her mother, Nell, moved in with her grandparents after her father, Elmer, died from the flu.

She grew up on her family farm in the stone house, which is now owned by Washington Township Supervisor Barbara McCracken.

Last week, Ridenour returned to the home, as she has done every year for the past eight years, to celebrate her birthday — this one, her 100th milestone.

Looking back

Ridenour sat on the porch on a warm, sunny afternoon and reflected on the past 100 years.

As she looked across the spring that runs between the house and Welty Road, she observed how much things have changed since she was a young girl growing up in the early 1900s.

"That wasn't there," she said, pointing to the electrical transfer station which sits at the entrance to Renfrew Park.

There was no township building. "It was all fields," she recalled, her memory as sharp as ever.

In fact, the porch she was sitting on facing Welty Road was the back porch in her day and the home was just one of the structures on her family's 70 acres.

"We had a corn crib and a barn, smokehouse, milk house and bake oven," she recalled. "Route 16 went in front of the house."

Ridenour recalled playing with a doll house on the porch and carrying water up from the spring.

She grinned when sharing memories of storing food in the milk house. "We didn't have refrigeration like we do today," she said. "I was the gopher. I brought watermelon and cantaloupes and anything we wanted cooled to and from the milk house. I thought it was fun. I didn't know any better," she said.

She remembers taking her first airplane ride when she was 7 or 8 years old.

As a teenager, Ridenour said she saved the change she earned from doing chores such as washing dishes and paid a nickel to ride the trolley to downtown Waynesboro. "We had clothing and shoe stores and Funky's soda fountain," she recalled.

She graduated from Waynesboro High School in 1936 and went on to what was then known as the State Teachers College at Shippensburg, now Shippensburg University, graduating in 1940.

She returned to Waynesboro to begin her career as an educator.

A life of learning

Ridenour began her teaching career at what was then Roadside School, teaching grades one to six. "They had an outdoor toilet and we carried water from a nearby farm and we were happy there," Ridenour recalled.

She taught there for four years before moving on to teach first and second grade in Hershey, where she stayed for 27 years before returning to Waynesboro to help her aging mother. She then taught at Hooverville for five years.

She said she still hears from former students from both school districts. In fact, McCracken's sister, Shirley Koons, had Ridenour as a teacher when she was in elementary school and joined her to celebrate the milestone birthday, along with neighbors Frank and Bonnie Damazo.

Ridenour said she was happy to have the opportunity to celebrate with friends at her old home.

When asked what she attributes her longevity to, Ridenour replied, "I have no idea! I often wonder about that."

Contact Andrea Rose at arose@therecordherald.com or 717-762-2151.

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